


Galanthus

by sebfish



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, Magical Realism, Nature Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-02 06:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17259473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebfish/pseuds/sebfish
Summary: “I just miss you,” Sid says, voice breaking and feeling raw.“Sid.” Flower’s tone through the phone is gentle and understanding, the same he uses to coax a sprout into gently unfurling, and Sid’s heart hurts.“I’m sending you something,” Flower says, when Sid doesn’t respond, “be careful with it, okay?”





	Galanthus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zeenell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeenell/gifts).



> I read your author's letter and was inspired, I don't know if plant-related soulmates are a thing but that's basically this fic. 
> 
> Unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine, this is a work of fiction and no harm is meant by it. If you got here by googling your name or that of someone you know, please turn back now.

“I just miss you,” Sid says, voice breaking and feeling raw.

“ _Sid_.” Flower’s tone through the phone is gentle and understanding, the same he uses to coax a sprout into gently unfurling, and Sid’s heart hurts.

“I’m sending you something,” Flower says, when Sid doesn’t respond, “be careful with it, okay?”

“Okay,” Sid says, clutching at his phone. He feels stupid for calling Flower when he can’t even figure out what to say to him, but even just hearing his voice over the phone makes him feel better.

“Did I tell you what Scarlett did yesterday?” Flower says, when the silence stretches on again.

“No,” Sid says, and listens as he launches into a story about Vero and the girls.

Sid misses them so much, but it’s a little easier, hearing him.

There’s a rime of frost on his phone when he puts it down, later, but he feels lighter.

 

 

 

It’s almost a cliché that he leans towards frost and ice, of all things.

“Of course he’s going to be good,” people had said while he was growing up, “have you seen what he does? He knows the ice, of course he’s going to play hockey.”

It wasn’t like he did it on purpose, like he was using it to cheat or whatever people liked to say. Critics said he was only good because he knew the ice, like that was all of it instead of just one tiny piece of hockey.

Ice made sense, yes, in a way other things didn’t, sometimes, but that wasn’t all of it. Even if he could feel the ice under his feet, even if it called to him, that didn’t help him get a shot past a goalie. It didn’t tell him where his teammates were on the ice, or what plays to set up, or where to bounce the puck off the boards to get it to a teammate.

He felt more at home there, maybe, but maybe he would’ve even if he’d been better at something else. Flower knew his plants and spoke to them, but that wasn’t what let him catch the edge of a puck at an impossible angle and fling it out of his crease.

It wasn’t what made him know Sid better than anyone else, to be Sid’s rock throughout the years no matter what else changed.

Hockey itself was hard, sometimes, but it was worth it, too.

 

 

 

When Flower and Vero packed up the house to move, he’d given most of his plants away.

“It’s a fresh start,” he’d said, but that wasn’t all of it. Most of them were Pennsylvania plants, the kind that needed cool and water and four seasons to prosper, not the hot, dry heat of the desert.

Most of them had gone to Tanger, whose warm sun was tempered by Cath’s cool winds. The plants loved him, even if it wasn’t something he was attuned to, and his back yard was thriving with Flower’s plants. It was always a sight to go over and see Tanger in the backyard, flowers and plants turning towards him as he passed by.  

The shade loving plants went to Geno, who knew dirt and rocks and had Anna to help, who knew the rain and clouds and water and knew if they needed more. She coaxed them into spreading out under the trees, with clever fingers that could pull the rain out of the clouds or the water up from deep in the soil.

A few of them went to other teammates, the easier to care for plants that weren’t bothered if someone didn’t know what to do for them. They gave them love, and that was enough.

He’d given Sid a spruce in a pot, just a foot and a half high but growing steadily.

“It’s cold hardy,” he’d said, “just plant it somewhere and keep it watered occasionally, and it should do fine. We were growing it to plant with the girls, but it’ll be better here.”

“Okay,” Sid had said.

Flower had helped him plant it by the back door, close enough to see but far enough that it wouldn’t be a nuisance once it got bigger.

He went to talk to it, sometimes, when he was missing Flower, and the tree seemed to be growing despite him, so something was going right.

 

 

 

The package arrives a few days later, a paper bag with a dozen small flower bulbs tucked carefully inside a padded envelope.

There is a letter, too, in Flower’s scrawling handwriting, with careful instructions. At the bottom of the note he'd written  _call me_. 

Sid leaves the bag on his kitchen counter, lonely in the midst of an empty expanse, and goes off to practice.

He stops at a home and gardening center after practice and buys a medium sized pot and a bag of potting soil. The employee is a friendly green witch with flowers in her hair, and he buys fertilizer too on her recommendation.

At home, he sets the pot carefully in its base in a well-lit nook of the kitchen, sunny but not too much so.

He calls Flower, because he’d memorized the Knights schedule and knew he’d be out of practice but wouldn’t have started his pre-game routine yet.

“Did you get the package?” Flower starts with, and Sid could hear Vero saying something in the background.

“Yeah,” Sid says. “I bought a pot and the soil you recommended?”

“Good, did you put the soil in yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Even better. There should be a rock in the bag, take that out and put it over the drainage hole with the side that’s curved in.”

Sid fishes in the bag and finds a rock he hadn’t noticed yet. It was a small piece of pale yellow sandstone, just big enough to fit over the hole in the bottom of the pot.

He makes a noise. “Is this?”

“It’s from my backyard,” Flower says. “Now fill the pot full of soil, all the way to the top.”

Sid rips open the bag and dumps it in, spilling some on the floor, as Flower continues. “You know, I’ve started a garden here. It’s not as easy, but there are plants that grow here too. The girls have started a succulent garden in the kitchen, I’ll have to send you pictures.”

“Yeah,” Sid says, “I’d like that.” He fills the pot all the way full, and presses the soil down lightly when Flower tells him to.

“Next,” Flower says, “push the bulbs down a few inches into the dirt. Make sure the roots are down, they’re the things that look like hairs. Just space them out evenly.”

“Okay,” Sid says. There’s something soothing about listening to Flower chatter on as he pushes the bulbs carefully into the soil, one by one.

“I’ve got to water them next, right?”

“Yes,” Flower says. “Water them until the water starts coming through the bottom. It might be easier if you put it in the sink, eh?”

“Okay.” The pot is cool to the touch when he lifts it into the sink, but it’s not frosted over.

He pours water over the pot until it starts leaking out the bottom, and then carries it back over to the base.

“Okay,” Flower says. “Just keep them watered if the dirt gets too dry, and they should be okay.”

“What are they?” Sid asks, smoothing his fingers over the top of the soil.

Flower laughs. “You’ll find out.”

 

 

 

He follows Flower’s instructions and keeps the pot watered, and after a few weeks, despite the cold, small green spikes start poking out of the dirt.

He touches them, careful and wondering, and snaps a picture to send to Flower.

Flower sends a smiley face, a thumbs up, and a leaf back in response, and Sid feels warm and pleased.

The plants keep growing until he has a pot full of little green leaves, like grass, even if he’s still not entirely sure what kind of bulb they are and Flower hasn’t said yet.

They leave for a roadie and he’s a little apprehensive about leaving his plants, even though Anna said that she’d stop by and check on them.

He’s hanging out with Geno after dinner in his hotel room, flipping through Instagram and listening to the rise and fall of Geno’s voice as he talks to Anna in Russian.

He’s not really paying attention until Geno nudges him, holding out the phone for him to take.

“Hi Anna,” he says.

“Hi Sid,” she says cheerily. “Good game! Wanted to tell you, plants are happy, say they miss you.”

“Oh,” Sid said, feeling pleased. “Thanks for taking care of them.”

She makes a noise of agreement, and he says goodbye and hands the phone back to Geno.

Geno talks to her for another few minutes, laughing, then hangs up.

“Anya say surprise for you when get home,” he says, grinning at Sid. “Plants waiting for you, I think.”

“That’s good,” Sid says.

Geno looks more serious, then, and reaches up to knock his fist gently against Sid’s shoulder.

“Good for you, I think.”

“Yeah,” Sid says, “I think so too.”

 

 

 

They get back from the roadie late at night, and the first thing he does is check on his plants.

They’ve all grown taller now, lush and green, and maybe he’s imagining it but it almost seems like they lean into his hand as he reaches in to brush a hand across them. They’ve grown little buds at the end of some of the stems, not quite open yet.

“Hey,” he says. “I missed you guys.”

He goes to bed, feeling exhausted but content.

The next morning, he’s up before his alarm, and the first thing he does is to go downstairs to check his plants.

The plants are where he left them, but now most of the stems that had buds now have little white flowers hanging down.

It’s not his imagination that they turn towards him as he approaches, leaning into his hand as he reaches down to touch one, gently.

“Oh,” he says, feeling dumbfounded. “Snowdrops.”

He calls Flower with shaking hands, even though it’s far too early.

“Sid?”

“My snowdrops bloomed,” he says in a rush, and Flower makes a gentle, pleased sound.

“I’m glad you figured that out, I knew they would.”

“Thank you,” Sid says, touching the snowdrops with careful fingers.

He doesn’t have Flower here, anymore, but he’s got his own flowers and Flower’s voice in his ear and a spruce growing cheerily in his backyard, and that’s enough, for now.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Galanthus (the mailbox remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18323129) by [frausorge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frausorge/pseuds/frausorge)




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